Day Three

An IVF baby is a wanted baby. No other baby is wanted more than a baby who is struggled for. No great love ever came without a struggle. Christ loved each of us to struggle and bleed from every pore and eventually die for each and every precious soul. That is a great and very pure love.

It was mid December of 2015. Randall was so excited about the pregnancy that he decided to announce it to the world at the very early stages, around 5 weeks in. He was so proud. We both were. We had a bit of fun telling our parents first of course. It was like some kind of contest to see who would be more excited. My parents just seemed confused by the pacifier they had just received as an early Christmas gift. I guess Randall's parents had the win. Whatever Bruners, 10 points to you. We decided to take a trip to St. George, Utah for Christmas to see Randall's brother and his family. We had a great time except for those progesterone shots. I couldn't even sit down or stand up or walk. Okay, really I couldn't do anything without pain in my butt. Why the butt?? Why couldn't it be my left arm or something not as useful? I see your cyber head nod, you agree with me because you know I'm right. Randall's sister-in-law is a nurse and offered to give the shots to me while we were there in St. George, but Randall, the ever valiant and courageous knight, decided I wouldn't want other people to see my butt so he politely declined. Dude, I'm doing IVF, everyone has seen my butt. I love you, Randall. I love you 3000 and more, but just let the nurse do it. 

We arrived back in Kansas right before the New Year of 2016 and after we exhausted our vacation days we trudged back to school, work and life. I was due for an ultrasound at 7 or 8 weeks of the pregnancy. Randall went with me to the appointment because, again, proud dad. He had more glow than I did. Ask anyone, they'll tell you Randall was a beautiful glowing soon to be dad. We arrived to the fertility clinic ready to hear the heartbeat the fetus would proudly display for us only to be told that there was a fetus, but no heartbeat. "Are you sure?" we asked, "I'm so sorry" was the reply. We asked to have another ultrasound in a few days to confirm, like hopeful idiots. We went home and did nothing for a few hours. Our faithful home teacher came by a few hours after and he and Randall gave me a blessing. It was no comfort at all. We went back to the clinic to hear what we already knew. There was no heartbeat. They scheduled me for a D&C the next day. All my life that was a book of scripture and revelation. Now it was taking my dream away while I was sedated and probably drooling. What? I drool when I'm hungry, don't you? 

Its a game. Sometimes you win. Sometimes, you just lose. That is the problem with IVF. Its a dream that might happen this time, and then it doesn't. But all things must come to pass in their time (D&C 64:32). With no other embryos, we had to start from scratch. This would be egg retrieval number three. Embryos were formed and sent for testing. Test came back. Everything was unusable. Insurance told us that they would only cover four egg retrievals unless there was a live birth in those four tries, then they would cover six. I actually thought about stopping. Not only was the chance starting to seem like a big joke to me, but we also started going into debt for all the treatments. Remember, insurance doesn't cover everything. We were paying close to $10,000 each try out of pocket and up front. No payment plans available past three months. That is the other thing about IVF, it is life and wallet sucking. I was happy with Randall, and why go through all that pain just to get my hopes up? Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I had been called into primary very early on after I married Randall and I moved to Lenexa, Kansas. After the New Year they put me into nursery. All the other nursery leaders were pregnant. Thanks for that. 

We quickly decided to go ahead for attempt number four. Around this time I decided to leave my happy relationship with Chick-fil-A and take a job with Randall's company where I would assist insurance agents with flood insurance. They offered a tuition payback program and that seemed valuable, not that I thought I would be going into business. I was working on a LPN program to get into nursing with only one semester left to finish my engineering program. Should probably just do that last semester, but I didn't as it would require me to enter a 3 month program out of state. Didn't want to leave right when we were starting this whole process again for possibly the last time. The call came early October from the lab to tell us that we had two good embryos to transfer. We were overjoyed! Two! We had two embabies. Little ice age globs of cells that we could call all our own. December 1, 2016 we transferred only one embryo at the recommendation of our doctor. And we waited again. There is so much waiting with this journey. It is one of the hard things in infertility. Waiting; and only just for a chance to win. You quickly learn that these things do not happen on your own terms. They happen when God wants them to happen. Yeah, waiting is hard.